Heaven in a Wildflower
by IronAmerica
Summary: I'm not leaving again. It hurts too much.


So, David Lyons is in a short called "My Mind's Own Melody". Erik Kripke is an evil shit. Have a new story.

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Heaven in a Wildflower

_March 13_

My bodyguards said I vanished for a day. Out of a locked bunker, with only one exit. It doesn't feel like that. There were two exits in that bunker. They're lying to me.

But I don't think they are.

Maybe.

There were two exits. The one I used to get in, and the one they say doesn't exist. I may knock that wall down later to prove them wrong. Or I'll keep what's outside it to myself.

Miles was on the other side of the door. He said I took a nasty fall. I should take care of myself better—no more all-nighters when I should be with family. We've won, after all.

Except that's not right, because here—in reality—Miles has abandoned me, Jeremy is dead (God, I should have waited; interrogated him, had him tortured, _anything_), and the rest of the Mathesons are nowhere to be found. They're in Georgia. Except for the boy, Danny. He's dead.

Except through the second exit. He's alive there—studying to be a doctor. He stitched the cut on my forehead shut, and smiled when I said he was supposed to be dead.

"Well, I was at the pool for a lot longer than I should have been," was his reply. Pool. Why the hell is he at the bottom of a pool? He was shot. I had the grave dug up so I could see. …his body is in a better, more protected spot now. It's under a tree that blossoms every year. (Miles won't kill me if he sees that I'm not completely gone. Right?)

But in that reality, apparently Danny spends time at the bottom of a pool. A lot. I think.

Things are better there, behind the second exit.

…I think I should stop drinking.

_March 23_

Maggie Foster died in reality. Not here. I'm not sure what to call this place. It's like reality, but better. Nothing's broken. Not as much, anyways. The people are happy. They smile when they see me. Philadelphia is…clean.

It's the last part that makes me think it's not real. Philadelphia is too clean in the other world. There's no trash in the streets. Everything looks like it's cleaned regularly. (It used to be like that here, but…then Miles left, and his officers started betraying me and I had to shoot them and then things started going wrong and it just got worse… Miles, please come back. I want to be happy again.) Maggie Foster is alive here.

She's my personal physician. We've got trade with England, and her kids call me Uncle Sebastian. They're very proper, but their accents are indecipherable. They're… I guess they're alright. They argue about the strangest things.

Here, though, I guess debating on how you'd build a biplane and get it flying again isn't so strange. It's normal. People tell the kids where to find machinery parts, or they have them and they'll trade for some help with their machinery.

Why is everything so much better here?

…why can't I have Miles for real?

_March 24_

My men refuse to let me have any privacy. I keep vanishing on them. They're afraid I'll be abducted by Rebels, or shot by Georgian spies. Thanks, but I've learned that lesson. They're making getting to the Second Exit a lot harder. (I need to think of a new name. Miles or Jeremy would have made a better one. Maybe I should ask them the next time I see them…)

I'm just glad that none of those bastards have looked in here. I like to think that I've gotten more…better, or less paranoid, since I first vanished. Everything here is so grimy. It's terrible. I hate killing people.

But they all look like traitors. They whisper behind my back. Say things. They know I killed Jeremy because I'm paranoid. They whisper that I'm lying about what really happened. (I said he died from injuries sustained protecting me. Who's going to know differently?) I hate it here. I hate it. I hate it.

I want Miles, and Jeremy, and hell, I even want Rachel back.

It didn't hurt as much when I had people I trusted. (Except for Rachel. But at least she talked to me.)

Maybe I should figure out how to get home from this horrible place without leaving my private quarters…

_April 3_

Philadelphia's in a panic. It's nice to know people are concerned about me. I was away for three days. My guards worried until they found me wandering around by the river. I think they worried a lot because I'd forgotten my shoes and coat back home. I meant to put them back on. I did.

But Mason—my _son_, who's alive and such a pain in the ass it's almost easy to imagine shooting him—asked me to help him find something in the river, and we ended up going for a swim. He likes swimming. And fishing. I… He said I taught him how to fish, like my dad did back when he was still alive. We went swimming, and Emma—we're not married, but she loves me and Miles too much to hurt either one of us by telling us that she loves one of us more, or that Mason doesn't belong to either one of us genetically speaking, because he's only from one of us—laughed at us when Mason dunked me under the water. My son is an evil little shit.

People wonder why I'm so miserable when I have to run this fucking country. It's not home. Everything here is horrible. Emma is dead. Mason might as well be. (I have people looking for him, but if I send too many, Randall will find out and he'll probably kill Mason, because he's the only fucker that benefits from my unhappiness. I want my family back.) Miles still wants to kill me here.

If I go home, I'm going to spend all day with Miles.

I know this entire journal reads like something Angie would write, but damn it, I'm too drunk to care right now. Everything is blurry, and…

Sleeping is going to be hard when Emma and Miles aren't with me.

I want my family back.

_April 5_

I forgot about Founders Day.

We don't celebrate it in Philadelphia anymore. I don't remember doing much except getting really drunk with Jeremy, after Miles left and started killing me by pieces.

I went home. We had a parade. Mason, Danny, and Charlie—and Doctor Foster's kids—were part of it. Danny is in the medical corps, with Doctor Foster's boys. Foster says he'll replace her someday. Mason rode with his mother. Charlie's in the infantry, walking. Even if she's an officer, she'll walk with her people instead of riding. She's good. She inspires them.

Philadelphia, I'd probably shoot her for fear of a coup. It's one of my biggest fears. I don't want to die alone. Miles promised he wouldn't leave me, but he did, and then Neville left, and John Faber left, and then Pete, and Jeremy, and Kip is gone too, and… I can't handle this. I hate it here. I have _no one_. I want to go home.

My men keep watching me. The area between my shoulder blades itches constantly. They're watching me. I should probably replace them. I think one of them might shoot me. The looks they all keep giving me…

I want to go home. Back to the parade. And the music, and the festival that's supposed to last all week. Why can't I have that? What did I do wrong? My son is there. My _family_ is there. Even Ben is there, because he never died.

Things are better at home.

I hate it here.

_April 15_

We're friends, when I'm home. Good friends, even. She teases me constantly. Says I must have been born in Dixie, because I'm so polite when we happen to meet on various diplomatic functions and trips. I must be a southern boy. Maybe I am. Who knows?

President Foster is nice here. We're friends. The Georgia Federation and the Monroe Republic: The unstoppable force that's going to unite America again, make her powerful again. We're friends. She made me Long Island ice tea. Said she still wasn't going to tell me who her rumrunners were.

I think it's a joke we're supposed to share. I laughed and faked a smile, and said I'd bribe it out of her eventually. I got the joke right, because she smiled and told me it would never happen.

We don't discuss business in my private home either. (I have a mansion on the outskirts of the city. I don't live in Independence Hall here. It's much nicer out here. Across the river is a Japanese Tea Garden. Miles says I spend time there when I need to think.) But we can discuss history. History isn't business. It's like jokes—we can have as much of it as we want. As much as _I_ want. I want to know what I did differently here.

Danny was abducted by bandits here, home. I rescued him. He led me right to Ben and Charlie and the fat man, Aaron.

Aaron works for me too, although he lives in the Georgia Federation with his wife. And his wife's second husband. (Apparently Priscilla started the trend. Although I wish she hadn't. Strausser, smiling and happy and playing with his children—although one or two of them might be Aaron's—isn't something I want to see. It's going to give me nightmares.)

I made everything better because Danny was abducted and I found him and he didn't want to let go of Unca Fishy, and cried when I tried to pry him away from me so Miles could take him.

Next time I come home, I'll build Danny a hospital.

Or a boat. Or something.

_April 27_

Georgia's surrendered to us. President Foster is in a cell, under Independence Hall. I miss Kelly. She was so kind to me. We were friends.

President Foster isn't Kelly. She's not my friend. She threw the glass of tea I offered her in my face, and slashed a new cut open on my cheek with the broken shards of glass. I hit her. Her nose broke.

Bitch.

Randall said I should kill President Foster. But if I do that, I'm afraid it will hurt Kelly. I won't be able to look at Kelly. She'll know. …no one at home thinks I'm crazy. They think I have a vivid imagination. Jeremy said I should retire from politics and write kids books for the rest of my life. If my home—my real one—keeps being as good as it is, I'll take his advice. He's got a test market for me if I want it.

I want to kill Randall.

Things are going badly here. The second exit isn't coming anymore.

I'm worried.

_April 30_

Miles is in Philadelphia. I have to remind myself that I'm not home. President Foster, I had to hang her. I didn't go. I drank myself into a depression I didn't want to climb out of. I haven't been able to find the second exit again. One of my men had to drag me out of the river and give me CPR when I thought I saw the door and swam all the way to the bottom and blacked out before I could open it.

Someone's watching me all the time now. I'm not going to be able to go home. If I died here, I might wake up in my bed at home, with Miles and Emma. Kelly would be there to call me names and joke about rumrunners in the Caribbean that she won't tell me about. Danny will still be alive. Charlie's going to like me there too.

Miles will still love me. He won't try to sneak around to kill me. He'll just sneak around to steal things from my desk, like he used to when he was still my friend. Except he is still my friend. I need to get home. This place is horrible. What am I doing here? Why'd I go through that second exit again?

Should have drowned myself.

My bodyguards are gone. Except for the one that Randall hired to watch me all the time. No more glass tumblers. Can't have his pawn cutting his wrists, after all. I'm paranoid, miserable, and depressed. Not suicidal. Prick.

I'm running out of ink. And I need a new journal. I spent too much time trying to capture happy memories. There's a pressed flower in one page. Charlie gave it to me a few weeks ago, when she said she was marrying Mason. I didn't really have a choice. She got Miles a bottle of Old Turkey when she told him. I like the pressed flower more than I would have liked the whiskey. Clever girl.

But Miles is in Philadelphia. He's not the right one.

Randall is watching me. I think he knows about the second exit.

He's trying to keep me from going home so he can control me.

I hate him.

_May 1_

Philadelphia is gone. I think I know how to get home.

- o – o -

Miles kicked the doors open, expecting to see Bass on the other end, ready to fire. The chair was facing the fireplace. A journal was resting on the desk, opened to the last page. There was a dried flower on the desk, petals flaking away from it. Ink dripped from the nib of an old pen that Miles didn't recognize onto a blotter sheet. There was an open decanter of whiskey on the desk, with a second glass waiting next to it.

He frowned and approached the chair.

Bass stared blankly up at the ceiling. His hand was curled around the second tumbler from the set. There were a few drops of whiskey at the bottom. Miles saw the foam clinging to one corner of Bass' mouth and felt ill. He turned away to pick up the journal, and saw the last entry, one line of text. Fresh ink glittered like black jewels on the page.

_May 1_

_I'm not leaving again. It hurts too much._

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Was Bass really crossing between universes or losing it completely? Drop a line and let me know!

Free tissues provided with every review.


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